Jaipur: Kathputli Puppet-Making Workshop & Show

A craft that is genuinely disappearing

Kathputli is Rajasthan's string-puppet tradition, and it is around a thousand years old. The puppeteers were itinerant Bhat communities who travelled between villages performing epics and satires, carrying the whole theatre on their backs.

Television took most of that audience. There are far fewer families doing it now than there were a generation ago, and the ones that remain survive largely on workshops like this one.

Making one

The artisan starts with the history, and then you build a puppet.

The head is mango wood, carved and painted. The features are exaggerated on purpose — kathputli puppets are meant to read from a distance in low light, so the eyes and moustaches are enormous.

The body is cloth stuffed with cotton, dressed in scraps of mirror-work fabric and lehenga offcuts, which is why every puppet is different. The costume tells you who the character is: a Rajput noble, a dancer, a snake charmer, a horse rider.

Then the strings. Kathputli puppets famously have no legs and no visible joints below the waist — the figure is worked from two strings tied to the puppeteer's fingers, and the movement comes from the puppeteer's whole hand. It is harder than it looks and the artisan will let you fail at it before showing you the trick.

The show

Afterwards, a performance. The classic story is Amar Singh Rathore, a Jodhpur noble who fought a Mughal court and lost, told with the sung narration and the shrill bamboo whistle the tradition uses instead of dialogue.

The puppets fight, dance, ride and decapitate each other. Children find it hilarious; adults notice the political satire.

You take your puppet home

All materials are included.

Practical

Around four hours. Suitable for children and not remotely a museum visit — you will be cutting, gluing and painting.

The workshop is a working home studio rather than a venue, which is the appeal.